The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry

This fine collection brings together a comprehensive selection, and in his informative introduction Jon Silkin traces the changing mood of the poets – from patriotism through anger and compassion to an active desire for social change. The work of Sassoon, Owen, Blunden and Rosenberg is well represented, but also included are less familiar war poets, such as Hardy and Lawrence, war poems written by women poets and translations of verse from Germany, France, Italy and Russia. The shattering, ironic realism, tenderness and regret reflected in these poems encompass the waste and violence war.